Monthly Archives: April 2016

Yesterday I showed individual Royal Poinciana flowers. Today I’m showing clusters and tomorrow I’ll show the entire tree. Some say the African Tulip tree is the most beautiful flowering tree on earth, but I say the Royal Poinciana is.

I really did not mean to stare
when I saw you standing there,
but there was sunlight in your hair.
It was tangled. Your feet were bare.
It was a lovely sight and rare
as, seemingly without a care,
you stood above me on the stair.
And though I wished to, I didn’t dare
climb up to see how you might fare.

Instead, my wretched form I bore
down the staircase and out the door.
Since then, you are that thing of lore
that resides within my core.
I still remember what you wore.
I lie awake. I pace the floor––
trying nightly to restore
at one, at two, at three, at four––
the vision of you one time more.

I cannot work. I cannot eat.
I see your hair the hue of wheat,
your wrinkled dress, your naked feet,
and cannot help but feel defeat;
because even in ardor’s heat,
my courage to ascend and greet
thee, and to make my life replete,
never ascends above your street,
never accomplishes the feat.

And that is why I’m in your hall
wondering if I have the gall
to stand up brave and sure and tall
and ring your doorbell––to make the call.
I put my ear against your wall,
but I can hear no sound at all.
Indecision casts its gloomy pall.
I hesitate. I pause. I stall.
I do not shoot. I bounce the ball.

Though all my fears I seek to quell,
my words are prisoners in a cell,
and though I have rehearsed them well
and have the key to where they dwell,
my thoughts of what to say won’t gel.
I stand here in my private Hell.
A deathly dirge begins to knell.
I raise my hand. I ring the bell
and steel myself––this tale to tell.

I don’t usually credit photographs, but all photographs on my blog are taken by me. The very few exceptions will be noted.

For the last poem of the month for NaPoWriMo, we were asked to find a poem in a language we do not know and to write a “translation” based on what we think it means. I chose a poem by an Italian 16th century poet. His name and poem are printed below my poem, which is:

Your Soft Voice Fills the World

Your soft voice fills the worldand causes the fronds to tremble.Oh Laura, my long love, even the trees laughas they spread their green blanket over my vagabond angel.Sing your song for meas you ride eastwardso I may hear it wherever I go.When you speak in the night,it resounds in the heavens.If you want to be queen, be queen of my heart.Our love endures in the mountains,oh beautiful vagrant of the skies.Both you and your words live within me.In the end, they will sustain me like a fine cuisine.

The smoke of your words lives within me. In the end, I will eat them like fine cuisine.

I loved those two images, but they seemed not to go with each other
or with the rest of the poem, so I changed them.

Here is a real translation of the poem:

Now the waves murmur
And the boughs and the shrubs tremble
in the morning breeze,
And on the green branches the pleasant birds
Sing softly
And the east smiles;
Now dawn already appears
And mirrors herself in the sea,
And makes the sky serene,
And the gentle frost impearls the fields
And gilds the high mountains:
O beautiful and gracious Aurora,
The breeze is your messenger, and you the breeze’s
Which revives each burnt-out heart.

My entire house is yellow orange! As is my living room and bedroom and studio… all different hues. I have been so busy that I hadn’t noticed that everything is blooming. The Royal Poinciana is the fullest I’ve ever seen it. I’ll show more of it tomorrow!